Kudos to EdPower; Indiana House blocks open records

An 18 year-old-girl walks past William Carter, who works with IMPD's department of nuisance and abatement, Indianapolis, on a night of multiple raids on Indy late-night establishment, IN, Sunday, March 23, 2013. Robert Scheer/The Star

Here's this week's rundown of Hoosiers who soared, and those who fell short:

Hit: Give credit to EdPower, the local education outfit that took over operation of Arlington High this school year. It's not backing away from the daunting task of educating a high percentage of special-needs children who attend the school. Some of the children, such as 12-year-old Zechariah Patrick, have extraordinary needs. Zech, who has cerebral palsy, can't walk or meet his own basic needs. Teachers feed him and change his diaper. He's one of more than 100 students at Arlington who need special-education services. EdPower, a charter school operator brought in last year to turn around Arlington, is helping to shatter the unsubstantiated charge that charters in Indy shun students with special needs.

Hit: As the radio voice of the Indiana University Hoosiers for 40 years, Don Fischer has become an icon in his adopted state (yes, he's a native of Fighting Illini country). Listening to him call a night game, driving down an Indiana two-lane, is a welcome step back in time when nothing was bigger in this state than basketball and no school was better at it than IU. Fischer told The Star's Phil Richards that he has no plans to stop calling IU games even as he enters his fifth decade. Here's hoping he continues to paint great memories for IU fans for years to come.

Hit: It's called The Butler Way -- a way of working hard, of maximizing ability, of behaving with integrity, of succeeding as a team. And no one embodies The Butler Way better than men's basketball coach Brad Stevens, who on Friday turned down an apparent chance to jump to tradition-rich UCLA. Steven is staying, and Butler and Indy are the better for it.

Miss: The Indiana House struck down an attempt on Monday to open records that document why state highway officials pay certain prices for property. State law now blocks the release of such information; state Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, proposed a legislative amendment that would have opened the records in response to an Indianapolis Star investigation that revealed questionable land purchases in order to build I-69. The amendment died on a 64-30 vote.

Miss: A bipartisan effort (once pushed by former Gov. Mitch Daniels) to update Indiana's criminal code for the first time in 30 years has run into an obstacle in the form of new Gov. Mike Pence. The reform effort is driven in part by a desire to reduce the number of inmates in state prisons (the inmate population has more than doubled since the 1990s). Pence, however, said the state should focus on cutting the crime rate, not reducing penalties. That may sound good politically, but in reality thousands of inmates are sitting in state prisons for nonviolent offenses that could be dealt with in much less costly ways.

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Kudos to EdPower; Indiana House blocks open records

Here's this week's rundown of Hoosiers who soared, and those who fell short: